What you posted is not a "promise" to pay anything to anyone. It is part of the legislative history of the SSA of 1935 taken entirely out of context.

Poppycock. The legislation clearly makes a promise. It still does, even though the many iterations and changes which Congress has wrought through the years.

Now if you are saying "well, it's a promise that might be broken, someday, maybe", I will have to agree with you. Someday the sun will explode, or a meteor will hit the earth, or a virus will kill all of mankind, and the promise will be broken.

That, along with all other "promises" does not make it "not a promise", because the definition of "promise" does not mean infinity, forever, and beyond.

Seattle Pioneer and you seem fixated that because something might change, someday, in some trivial way, that there is not "a promise" to pay benefits under the Social Security system. This is arrant nonsense, hardly worthy of the time I'm taking to type.

And he keeps throwing the word "ponzi" up, even though that is a categorical misuse of the word, but then he thinks it helps his argument to pervert the language, and there is nothing I can do about it. That is unfortunate, for reasonable debate requires a common use of the language, and it becomes clear that he has no interest in reasonable debate on the issue. (For the record: ponzi schemes end when there is NO ONE LEFT to contribute. I am going to presume that there will always be someone working in the United States, and therefore contributing, and therefore (by definition) it will not end, at least until the meteor hits.)

This is all uinfortunate, because I used to have some respect for SP, but it becomes clear that he would rather prevaricate, lie, and ignore simple truth than have a meaninful conversation. Sad.

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